Weekly blog - 13th Feb 25

Just like that, we've reached the end of this half term and are halfway through this academic year! We've ended on a high this week with the hugely popular "Art Exhibition" on Tuesday. Thank-you to everyone who was able to attend and look through the amazing art that was on display. The children are rightly proud of their achievements, and it was great to let them share their enthusiasm for learning. We are looking at doing these events whenever possible to be able to share even more with you. Safer Internet Day was this Tuesday. The children learned about scams, how to recognise the signs and what to do if they think they have seen one. Online safety is key in our digital world, and we make sure we teach children how to be safe with technology. Obviously, they spend more time with you than in school and we have lots of resources on our website to help signpost parents and carers to expert help and advice if needed. World Book Day is fast approaching on the 6th of March and the librarians have decided that, along with dressing up as a favourite book character, they would like to hold a book swap. Children are welcome to bring up to 5 books that they would like others to enjoy and swap them with their classmates. More information on this will be forthcoming, but I wanted to give everyone a heads-up about the event. We are really lucky to be part of the Darite community - we have had several lovely comments about how amazing the willow structure looks after the trim last weekend. Thank you so much to Meika and the volunteers for taming the structure. We can't wait for the summer to be able to take learning outside event more. Everyone at Darite wishes you all a very relaxing half term-break and we are looking forward to to seeing the children back in school on Monday 24th February.

February 

History
We have been exploring how the Census can shed light on life in local areas throughout the past. Census records offer a fascinating glimpse into how people lived, worked, and grew their communities over time. It has been immensely enjoyable to watch the children turn into historians, interrogate the historical sources and drawing conclusions from their inference. From our work, the children have identified how localities can be defined according to the jobs available, how women’s rights (or lack of) influenced the census and how information sharing has changed over time. One of the children shared their enjoyment of the learning, “I love working wit the Census, I have made one of my own at home”.

What a busy half term it has been at Team Brunel! We have fitted so much learning and enriching opportunities into the last 6 weeks and now we have reached the half term break. We wish you all a restful and peaceful half term holiday and will see you all again on Monday 24th February for the start of the second half of the Spring Term.

Marazion Class Blog – End of Half Term Update

Wow—what a fantastic end to this half term! The children have worked incredibly hard and had so much fun with their learning.

In English, we’ve been preparing for our poetry writing by exploring noun phrases and prepositions to create vivid descriptions. The children also practiced performing poetry aloud, building their confidence and expression—there are certainly some budding poets in the class!

Maths has been full of excitement as we continued our times tables challenges and tackled multiplication and division with larger numbers. The children have shown great perseverance and problem-solving skills, and we are so proud of their progress.

In History, we wrapped up our fascinating topic on the Stone Age to Iron Age by comparing different periods and reflecting on how life changed over time. The class had some brilliant discussions, showing how much they’ve learned.

This week, we were also lucky to have an exciting visit from an author and illustrator! The children loved engaging in creative activities inspired by their work, and many took the chance to get a signed book—a wonderful way to celebrate reading and storytelling.

We also enjoyed our final Art Club session, where the children created some beautiful mindful pattern landscapes. It has been wonderful to see their creativity shine. Next half term, we look forward to switching to Dance Club, which will be a great way to keep active and have fun together.

We also took time to focus on well-being with our Love Yourself Day. It was a lovely way to celebrate kindness and self-worth, finishing with PSHE love hearts filled with reasons why we love ourselves. It was heartwarming to see the children’s positivity and self-reflection.

Thank you for all your support this half term. We hope you have a wonderful and restful break, and we look forward to another exciting half term of learning ahead!

Nessa Class Explores Retro-Futurism and Street Art

Nessa Class has completed an exciting six-lesson art unit, exploring the vibrant worlds of 1960s retro-futurism and the dynamic street art of contemporary artist Teis Albers. This creative journey has allowed pupils to experiment with bold colours, textures, and layering techniques while developing their artistic skills in printmaking and drawing.

The unit began with an introduction to retro-futurism, a 1960s artistic style that imagined the future with sleek designs, bold typography, and space-age aesthetics. Pupils examined how this style influenced everything from posters to architecture, inspiring their own futuristic concepts. They then explored the work of Teis Albers, a Dutch street artist known for his use of layering, mixed media, and urban textures. His fusion of collage, graffiti, and digital art provided a fresh perspective on modern creativity.

One of the key skills pupils developed was creating printing plates using a mix of textures. They experimented with different materials to create varied surfaces, which added depth and contrast to their final prints. Through this process, they gained an understanding of relief printing and how texture can be used to create striking visual effects. Pupils also explored layering techniques, combining prints, drawings, and collage elements to build up complex and engaging compositions. This process encouraged them to think critically about composition and balance while embracing the unpredictable and expressive nature of mixed media art.

Throughout the unit, pupils refined their drawing skills, using bold lines, futuristic patterns, and abstract shapes inspired by both retro-futurism and street art. Their final pieces showcased an impressive blend of past and present artistic influences, demonstrating their creativity and skill. Well done to Nessa Class for their enthusiasm and hard work in this unit—your artwork is truly out of this world!

Mr Hodgins hosted a TEAMs call where he taught Class 3 how to scan an image on the photocopier, the children will then use software to alter and adapt them. Their scanned images will be used to create a piece of artwork which can be used as part of a wider presentation about the planets in the solar system.

Lantic class have been having fun with lots of new things to explore in their outdoor area. A big thank you to the Lantic staff team for creating such a wonderful environment for the children.

Thank you to all the children for their donations to Comic Relief and everyone’s odd socks for Down Syndrome Awareness Day.

Thank you to Mr Lewis for leading our assemblies this week. We were set challenges across the day to explore who our trusted adults are, our top tips for staying safe online and what to do if we are playing a game and we receive messages/click bait. We also thoroughly enjoyed 3/4A's rap - 'Stay Safe, Safe'! The children in KS2 in particular were very knowledgeable of what they can do to keep themselves safe online and all of KS1 and EYFS were able to share who their trusted adults are and how they help them stay safe. An email has gone out to parents with more information about online safety to help at home too. 

Lo

Hello Everyone,

We have enjoyed a variety of learning tasks which have helped to improve our wellbeing in Penhallow. After watching a clip from the film ‘Inside Out’ we were able to name and describe different feelings and emotions. We  read the story ‘The Colour Monster’ and created feelings jars using colours which helped to describe different feelings. We also learnt a song, linked to these ideas. The children’s vocabulary has really improved throughout these activities. 

We have all been really proud of our reception children recently, who are beginning to write their own words and captions, using their recently acquired phonic knowledge. We even caught some children writing for fun during choosing time. Well done reception!

Year 1 have been working very hard in maths this week, adding and subtracting numbers to 20. They have been using number lines and drawing on their knowledge of number facts to represent their knowledge in different ways. We have written fact families using addition and subtraction and used bar models and part while models to record number sentences.

During our Geography lesson this week, we went outside to observe different forms of clouds. We located different areas of the UK on a map, and learnt about seasons and weather patterns in the UK.

We all had a lovely end to our week, with a day of birdwatching, yoga, and outdoor learning. All of this, combined with a fascinating visit from a Hindu lady, who brought in a huge selection of artefacts which helped us to understand her religion and beliefs, has made sure that we have had a very varied and interesting week.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend.

From the Penhallow team.

As part of our learning this week we have been looking at sizes.

In our focus story, Goldilocks came across bowls of porridge, chairs and beds that were small, medium and large so the children were tasked to find different resources or parts of the activities where they could compare and find different sizes.

We talked about other words to describe small (tiny, little, minute), medium (middle sized) and large (huge, enormous, gigantic, massive); we also talked abut how the size of something could change if we compared the item to other things that were smaller or larger.